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Monday, June 26, 2017

Milwaukee Marathon Half Marathon Training: Week 2 Recap

Week two was fun to get back into the "Hansons" swing of things. My first track workout in a long while was AWESOME! My first tempo run in a long while was not. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. My legs definitely felt tired this whole week and I'm sure will take a bit to get used to being on a training plan again.Monday, June 19Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 12 x 400 at 5k/10k pace with 400 m recovery in between, 1.5 mile cool down

What I do: I slept through my alarm. I could have done this after kids were in bed at night but I knew I would have a hard time getting to sleep so I pushed it off a day.

Tuesday, Jun 20Plan says: 0 miles

What I do: Get my a** out of bed. It was a tough one because my son had gotten up in the middle of the night and that always throws me off but I did it. The high school track is 1.8 miles from our house so I ran there and home for my warm up and cool down. I was pleasantly surprised at how good these felt and how fast they were. My goal was 1:33 for the 400s. Crushed it.

1.8 mile cool down, 14:18 (7:57 avg pace)
Total: 9.43 miles
I had to do this workout on February 20 as part of marathon training and I was curious how these paces compared since I had the same goal pace of 1:33 then. My 400s were significantly faster in June! The caveat being that I did these on the road in February and on a track in June. Here are my February 400s:

1:35
1:36
1:31
1:29
1:30
1:30
1:32
1:32
1:36
1:32
1:31
1:31

Wednesday, June 21Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 3 miles at half-marathon pace (6:44), 1.5 mile cool down
What I do: Oh the return of tempo run Wednesdays. My legs felt tired when I woke up in the early morning to do this. (YES! I woke up early two days in a row!) But I knew I had to get it done so that my legs could rest enough for my race on Saturday.

1.5 mile warm up, 12:39 (8:26 avg pace)

Yep. No problem getting over 8:00 miles on that one!

3 mile tempo, 19:49 (6:36 avg pace)
By the numbers this looks good but it was a bit of a disaster. I chugged along and hit my first mile in 6:51. Rather than just let it ride and let the pace come, I freaked out that it was "slow" and kicked it in and then realized that I had kicked it in too much. Stop. Mental Reset. Continue. Second mile was 6:42. Continued mental freakout that it felt too hard, but had to keep pushing. Felt like I was dying. Stop. Mental Reset. Continue. Third mile, 6:14.

So yes. There continues to be some work to be done. All of my mental prowess that I developed in the months leading up to the marathon seems to be gone, or at least diminished.

Friday, June 23Plan says: 4 miles easyWhat I do: After getting up pre-5:00 am for three days in a row, I was bound to sleep in. Thus, I did this after work. I only did 3 easy miles on account of the fact I had a race in the morning.

3 miles, 23:51 (7:56 avg pace)

Saturday, June 24Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do: See Bigfoot Trail 10K Race Report and my bibrave.com review. I will say that after I read some articles re: trail racing vs. road racing, I feel a bit better about the race. You can lead the Type A runner to a trail, but you cannot undo competitive hard wiring in one race!

Recent Race Photo

About Me

I am a 36-year old woman living in Wisconsin who loves to run. I work full time in the health care industry and have a husband and two young children. I originally developed this blog to keep myself motivated on a central goal I had after the birth of my second child: Qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon. After I checked that goal off the list, I used this blog to document my training and preparation for the 2016 Boston Marathon. Now that the marathon is over...I use the blog to continue documenting training and running-related aspects of my life. Thank you for reading! I love comments!